Police detectives conducted a sting operation Friday morning and shut down what they said was an illegal massage parlor near Hart’s Four Corners.

The sex-for-pay business operated out of the back of a three-story building at 625 County St., police said. Other tenants there include a barbershop and a computer repair business.

Police charged 32-year-old Melinda Anne Woodbury, who listed the County Street building as her home address, with a single count of prostitution.

They also arrested Woodbury on charges of illegal possession of a Class B substance, the heroin treatment drug Suboxone, and possession of a Class E substance cyclobenzaprine hydrochloride, a muscle relaxant.

Police found out about the massage parlor Friday morning from an investigator with the Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure — who had been monitoring BackPage.com, a website know for posting ads that are sometimes sexually suggestive.

A Taunton detective said he called a phone number listed on BackPage and spoke to directly to Woodbury, who agreed to meet him at the County Street building.

After being led into a first-floor room, Woodbury allegedly quoted a $60 price for a massage. When the officer asked about a “gratuity” listed in her ad, she allegedly agreed to provide masturbation and oral sex for an extra $100.

The officer signaled other detectives outside who first knocked and then forced open the back door. Police said they confiscated seven pills from Woodbury, one Suboxone and six cyclobenzaprine.

Police said Woodbury told them she gave $30 per client to the building’s owner, identified as 39-year-old Marco A. Sousa, of the same address.

Police texted Sousa, who responded and claimed that he’d been renting a room to Woodbury. Sousa was charged with maintaining a house of prostitution and deriving support from prostitution.

A police source said the County Street sex ring has operated since April and that at least three other women were meeting and charging men for sex. There was never any sign posted at the site alerting passerby to the existence of a massage parlor, he added.

Sousa was listed as a supporter of a petition presented in 2011 to the city’s zoning board, which approved a special, mix-use permit for a hair salon on the first floor and a residential unit upstairs.

The petitioner at the time was Zenalia Sousa of Glebe Street. The city’s Development Impact Review Board also approved the petition at a separate hearing.

The BackPage website was also in the news last May when the Gazette reported that former Taunton rookie police officer Joshua Acerra had allegedly placed ads pimping out his girlfriend. The couple were arrested at a Middleboro hotel, where police said a man who had met the couple through an online ad died from an apparent heroin overdose.

Page 2 of 2 - Acerra was fired in 2009 by the City Council following a lengthy disciplinary hearing that also led to the early retirement of former Police Chief Raymond Oberg.